A recurring object, word, image, phrase, or action, which illustrates a theme throughout the work. Motifs can often be used to remind the reader of the previous occurences and impressions of the theme.
Examples
1. The motif of garden is present throughout the novel, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It represents the convoluted life of Antoinette and how chaotic it is.
"There is a tree of life in the garden and the wall green with moss. The barrier of the cliffs and the high mountains and the barrier of the sea. I am safe. I am safe from strangers." (16 Rhys) 2. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the motif of music occurs throughout the novel. Music represents Edna's drive to be like Madamoiselle Reisz, more independent and free from society's limits.
"The very first chords which Madamoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. It was not the firt time she had heard an artist at the piano. She waited in vain. She saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her." (26 Chopin)
3. The motif of the sun in The Stranger, by Albert Camus, represents Meursault's repressed emotions. The sun distracts Meursault and takes over his sense.
"All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, instinctively, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes."
(59 Camus).
4. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a recurring motif of the novel is ritual which is partially communicated in the novel through the exhibition of love, such as Angela Vicario's robotic letter writing to Bayardo San Roman.
"From then on she was no longer conscious of what she wrote nor to whom she was really writing, but she kept on without quarter for seventeen years."
(110 Garcia-Marquez)
Motif
Definition
A recurring object, word, image, phrase, or action, which illustrates a theme throughout the work. Motifs can often be used to remind the reader of the previous occurences and impressions of the theme.Examples
"There is a tree of life in the garden and the wall green with moss. The barrier of the cliffs and the high mountains and the barrier of the sea. I am safe. I am safe from strangers." (16 Rhys)
"The very first chords which Madamoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. It was not the firt time she had heard an artist at the piano. She waited in vain. She saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her." (26 Chopin)
3. The motif of the sun in The Stranger, by Albert Camus, represents Meursault's repressed emotions. The sun distracts Meursault and takes over his sense.
"All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, instinctively, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes."
(59 Camus).
4. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a recurring motif of the novel is ritual which is partially communicated in the novel through the exhibition of love, such as Angela Vicario's robotic letter writing to Bayardo San Roman.
"From then on she was no longer conscious of what she wrote nor to whom she was really writing, but she kept on without quarter for seventeen years."
(110 Garcia-Marquez)